New Teaching Diploma for Christian Religious Education

Bethlehem University recently received the official accreditation from the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education to offer a post-graduate Teaching Diploma of Christian Religious Education.  This Diploma program was recently re-designed by the Religious Studies Department in collaboration with the Faculty of Education and under the leadership of Father Jamal Khader, the Cardinal Hume-de Furstenberg Chair of Religious Studies.  Once of the significant modifications in this re-designed program is to include courses in Education taught by the Faculty of Education in addition to the courses in Religious Studies. 

This Diploma is designed to prepare and upgrade Catechists working in schools and parishes and is offered in two modules:

1. For those Catechists who currently hold a bachelors degree in Religious Studies or its equivalent, they will take 30 credits (10 courses over 5 semesters). Three of these courses deal with Catechism and are taught by the Department of Religious Studies. The remaining seven courses involving pedagogy may be taken together with other students majoring in education and taught by the Faculty of Education or the Department of Religious Studies.   
   
    
2. The second module is designed for Catechists who hold a bachelors degree which is not in Religious Studies or its equivalent.  These students will take 41 credit hours of courses: 30 credits are shared with the students of the first module and an additional 11 credit hours are courses in Religious Studies which focus on Christian Doctrine, the Gospels, and Ethics.

All the schools in Bethlehem area, including the government schools, were informed about this new Diploma program.  Applications for the program began being accepted in October 2005 for courses to begin in January 2006.